The Shadow Is Calling You

Do you have a shadow? Are you wondering, “What is a shadow?” I’m not talking about your body shape that appears on the concrete when the sun hits you in a certain way. The shadow I’m talking about is what Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called the “unknown dark side of the personality.”

I want to talk about shadows because the violence and the terrorism and the difficulties of life in the United States, where I live, are reaching a critical point. As a result of my sadness and grief and anger, I found myself thinking and wondering, what can I do? How can I help? Talking about shadows made sense as something I could offer.

Bare with me a moment while I get a bit psychological. In one quick paragraph, I circle back to the personal. I promise.

According to Jung, the shadow, or as many call it, the dark side, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to psychological projection, in which a perceived personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections remain hidden, “The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object–if it has one–or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power.” These projections insulate and harm individuals by acting as a constantly thickening veil of illusion between the ego and the real world.

Another way to understand the shadow part of ourselves is that the shadow contains all the parts of ourselves that we have tried to hide or deny. It contains those dark aspects that we believe are not acceptable to our family, friends, and most important, to ourselves. The dark side is stuffed deeply within our consciousness, hidden from ourselves and others. The message we get from this hidden place is simple: there is something wrong with me. I’m not okay. I’m not lovable. I’m not deserving. I’m not worthy. I am bad.

I don’t know about you, but I have struggled for much of my life with the deep, dark shadow that I am not lovable and that I am not worthy. I am not enough. Luckily, I found my way to incredibly profound therapeutic processes and very wise guides. I found Holotropic Breathwork, and then I found the Hoffman Process. Rather than shrink from my shadow, I wanted to understand it. I still want to understand my shadow. I didn’t want and don’t want to project my shadow onto the people and the world around me.

Learning how to embrace my shadow self was not and is not an easy path to choose. There are days when my shadow rears it’s head with a ferociousness that stuns me and takes me by surprise. Just last week, with a dear friend, it reared. I believed she wouldn’t notice if I didn’t attend her anniversary party. Turns out she did notice and she was disappointed. And thankfully, she told me. When she told me, I was shocked. I didn’t believe I mattered. That was my shadow taking over. Thankfully, I’ve learned tools to recognize when I start to project and blame and start telling myself I am not worthy, not lovable, and not noticeable.

In this video below, one of my very wise teachers and one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology, Stanislav Grof, talks about how vital it is for all of us today to start dealing with our shadow selves. With the recent shootings by police officers of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, and the sniper shooting of five Dallas police officers, it is imperative that each one of us looks inside ourselves and grapples with our shadow selves.

What if part of the chaos of these times is because so few of us have looked at our shadow, and what we are collectively doing is projecting our shadow onto the world around us?

Please, find a guide.

Find tools to take a look at your shadow.

You, and the world, call you to do this.

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